An East Hampton Town fire marshal’s office investigation into a complaint last summer of overcrowding at the Inn at East Hampton uncovered 61 violations related to New York State Fire Prevention and Building Code, but concluded that “the original complaint of overcrowding at the 20-unit motel was unfounded,” according to a release sent out by the office Friday afternoon.

A representative from East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department said earlier this spring that it had received a call last July about overcrowding.

While that was not an issue, the 61 violations include missing or inoperable smoke detectors, missing carbon monoxide detectors, electrical junction boxes with exposed wires, extension cords in lieu of permanent wiring, combustible debris, such as old mattresses and cardboard boxes in the basement, and exterior lights suspended by live electrical wires in all second-story units.

Such violations created “serious life-safety hazards and fire hazards, all in violation of the code,” according to the fire marshal’s office. “Our first and foremost priority is the safety of the tenants and ensuring the swift remediation of these hazardous conditions,” David Browne, the chief fire marshal, said in the release.

“I welcomed the fire marshal with open arms and voluntarily gave access to all of our rooms as well as the entire property,” Jason Gutterman, who took over as manager of the inn last fall, said in an email Saturday. “It is my goal to correct every violation on the report as quickly as possible and bring the entire property into compliance.”

The two-story yellow and white building on Montauk Highway was formerly the 27 Inn and prior to that the Dutch Motel. Its rooms are now rented on a long-term basis to local workers, several with young children who attend East Hampton Schools.

When Ordinance Enforcement received the complaint last July, the motel was housing a group of Jamaican students working summer jobs. But late last year, following serious damage to many of the motel rooms, the Inn at East Hampton changed its business model and began renting to year-round residents, its manager, Mr. Gutterman, told The Star in an interview earlier this year.

“The previous managers were aware of many of the existing violations, however they failed to notify the owners of the property, and for that reason, no action was taken at that time,” Mr. Gutterman wrote. “We have made great efforts to bring the property up to code in recent months and have already fixed many of the violations we received.” The recent inspection by the fire marshal was the first of the inn since he took over as manager, he said.

The unfurnished rooms rent for between $1,300 and $1,500 a month.

According to the Town of East Hampton’s tax assessor, Alex Demetriades purchased the property in February of 2004. He signed two deeds on the same day -- one for $2 million and the other for $300,000. Purchased under Hamptons Land Corporation c/o World Properties, Mr. Demetriades, the corporation’s C.E.O., receives his tax bills in Floral Park, N.Y.

Hamptons Land Corporation is due in East Hampton Justice Court on July 11 to respond to the violations. In the meantime, the onsite manager of the property, has been notified and “is expected to begin repairs immediately,” the fire marshal’s office said.

“It is our goal to complete the remaining work as quickly as possible in order to continue to provide a safe and wholesome environment for the families that live with us,” Mr. Gutterman wrote on Saturday. “It is the owners intention to comply and they have agreed to work with me to that end.”

A woman was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital Saturday with serious injuries after the vehicle in which she was a passenger drove off the road and into the woods on North Haven. 

The sport utility vehicle carrying a family of four, including two children and a dog, was found about 60 feet in the woods by Route 114 and Sunset Beach Road, according to Bruce Schiavoni, the first assistant chief of the Sag Harbor Fire Department. A 911 call was received at about 1:55 p.m. 

Chief Schiavoni said he and a paramedic working for the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps were the first to arrive. A female passenger had the worst injuries, and reports from police were that she had a fractured skull. They were able to get the door open to the badly damaged S.U.V. to gain access to her. The chief said it appeared the S.U.V. had rolled once, but that it looked as if it had been driven straight through the woods. "I have no idea how they made it that far," he said, adding that it is a heavily wooded area. 

The chief called an engine and the heavy rescue squad to cut down trees and clear a path in the woods so that the ambulance crew could carry the woman out of the woods on a backboard. The ambulance took her to Havens Beach, where a medevac helicopter landed to take her to Stony Brook, the nearest level-one trauma center. 

The male driver and the children were taken to Southampton Hospital. 

Southampton Town police are investigating the crash.

The chief said one lane of Route 114 was kept open the entire time, but traffic was backed up in the area due to the accident.

Update, 9 p.m.: Southampton firefighters meeting up at the department's antique truck barn on Flying Point Road were the first to report flames coming from a house next door, according to Chris Brenner, the first assistant fire chief. They found a fire in the back of the house, he said. 

Flames extended inside, but firefighters were able to extinguish them quickly, within 20 minutes of first spotting them. Chief Brenner said there was water damage inside the house, but it was not a total loss. 

Chief Michael Kampf was in charge of the scene. 

The Southampton Village fire marshal's office is investigating the cause. 

Originally, 5:40 p.m.: A fire broke out in a building near the Downs Family Recreational Park on Flying Point Road in Southampton on Monday evening, calling out firefighters from several surrounding districts. 

The call was received at 5:09 p.m. It was unclear if it was a residential or commercial building. 

The Southampton Fire Department requested help from the Bridgehampton and North Sea Fire Departments and the Sag Harbor Fire Department's rapid intervention team, in case a firefighter needed to be rescued from inside the building. Hampton Bays firefighters were standing by at Southampton's firehouse to answer any additional calls. 

All visible fire was knocked down at about 5:40 p.m., the Southampton Fire Department reported. 

Check back for more information as it becomes available. 

A Montauk man who boasted in a recent Vanity Fair article about being above the law in East Hampton Town found himself face to face with it on Monday, when he was arrested and charged with driving while high on drugs, unlicensed driving, and multiple moving violations.

Police said Dylan Eckardt, 37, was swerving in his 2006 Land Rover and ran two stop signs in downtown Montauk before he was pulled over on Monday afternoon. According to the police report, his pupils were dilated, he was unsteady on his feet, and he performed poorly on roadside sobriety tests, including some specially designed to detect drugs in the system.

Mr. Eckardt reportedly told police he had taken Xanax and Lithium, for which he had prescriptions. "This is the one time I'm not really f***ed up and driving around and you harass me," he said, according to the police report. "Now Montauk is going to be tough for you guys this summer."

At his arraignment on Tuesday morning, East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky was clearly perturbed with Mr. Eckardt, who has been charged at least three times in recent years with driving without a license, was convicted in 2014 of unlicensed driving, and is currently again on the justice's criminal calendar for such a charge.

"He has two prior matters here," Justice Tekulsky said, as he considered what level of bail to set. "It also appears that he has some out-of-state contact with the criminal justice system. I recognize his ties to the community, but I will tell you, his case has been pending on an aggravated unlicensed driving charge, and he has not had a license since July of 2015." His attorney, Trevor Darrell, stood by his side.

Mr. Eckardt, a former professional surfer, is a real estate agent in Montauk with Nest Seekers, and was the subject of a lengthy profile earlier this month in Vanity Fair. While driving around the hamlet with the writer, he told her that "Cops had already written him seven tickets in the last two months. . . ."

Justice Tekulsky acknowledged Tuesday that Mr. Darrell has worked with his client to reverse the various violations that led to his license being suspended, then added, "He still does not have a license to drive in the State of New York, and he chooses to drive in the State of New York. That suggests to me that he does what he chooses in his own interests."

Bail was set at $1,000, which was posted.

Mr. Eckardt is due back in court to face the current charges, as well as the previous unlicensed driving charge Justice Tekulsky spoke of. 

East, a magazine designed to reflect the best of the South Fork and published by The East Hampton Star, will debut June 23 with Biddle Duke as its editor. It will appear four times in 2016, with additional issues in July, August, and November.

“The magazine enables us to pull back and put everything in perspective, both from the journalism and writing perspective but also with photography,” Mr. Duke said.

He is the former publisher of The Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record newspapers. Mr. Duke had previously been a reporter at the Evening Post Publishing Company in South Carolina, which publishes the Post and Courier of Charleston. He divides his time between Stowe and Springs.

East is expected to appeal to year-round residents, part-time residents, and visitors, David E. Rattray, the editor of The Star, said. Its stories are a mix of entertainment and hard news. It includes writing by Michael Shnayerson, a contributor to Vanity Fair and the author of several books, most recently, “Before I Forget: Love, Hope, Help, and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer’s” with B. Smith and Dan Gasby; Carl Safina, a naturalist and author of “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel,” and Iris Smyles, whose new novel, “Dating Tips for the Unemployed,” will be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt next week.

“East presents an opportunity for The Star to reach a broad audience and find new readers eager for a serious, in-depth take on the East End’s remarkable people, nature, and the arts,” Mr. Rattray said.

“There is a whole community of people who are powerfully connected to this place who don’t get featured in the array of other media that exists here,” Mr. Duke said. “A beautiful, local magazine, that’s the idea.”

Other writers include The Star’s Laura Donnelly, Irene Silverman, Jennifer Landes, and Amanda M. Fairbanks, whose in-depth profile of the Round Swamp Farm’s Lester, Niggles, and Snyder families is among the debut issue’s anchor features.

Photography for the first issue came from Andrew Blauschild, Philippe Cheng, Sunny Khalsa, Michael Halsband, and Tara Israel, and Doug Kuntz, Morgan McGivern, Dell Cullum, and Durell Godfrey from The Star’s regular roster.

“East represents an authentic coin, with real-life stories on one side and honest analysis of longstanding issues on the other,” Helen S. Rattray, The Star’s publisher, said. “Those on the East team are looking deeply into what makes this community second to none and at the same time they’re having fun.”

East had an initial print run of 20,000 copies, half of which will be distributed with the Thursday Star; the balance will be circulated for free pickup in North and South Fork retail businesses, public transportation hubs, and hotels, restaurants, and inns. East also will appear online.

Nancy Atlas, a Montauk musician who has performed here for 20 years, strode in front of the East Hampton Town Board at a meeting at the Montauk Firehouse on June 14 and sang an a cappella stanza from “The Star-Spangled Banner” while holding a phone that contained a decibel meter.

Ms. Atlas was among a number of musicians at the meeting who told the board that the town’s noise ordinance had struck a bad chord by defining violations as above a decibel level that is at — or even lower than — common ambient sound. They further charged that a number of businesses had to pull the curtain on live music, at least temporarily, because the town had brought licensing issues to the attention of the State Liquor Authority.

Ms. Atlas’s phone showed a low of 65 decibels “when I was breathing,” she said, with an average of 93 decibels and a peak of 100. She pointed out that the town code states that 55 decibels is a noise violation. “It’s all well and good and funny,” she told the board after her small performance, “except people are getting ticketed.”

After a get-tough stance on quality of life violations by the town last summer, police and ordinance enforcement officials had stopped issuing warnings. “It’s an instant thousand dollar ticket at 55 decibels,” she said.

Violations at local businesses that hold licenses from the State Liquor Authority are routinely referred by town police to the S.L.A., and at a hearing just before Memorial Day it was discovered that the Surf Lodge, which is one of Montauk’s most popular nighttime venues, lacked live music classification from the S.L.A.

  The town then asked the authority to examine the status of other businesses, and it was discovered that a number that have town music entertainment permits did not have corresponding information on file with the state agency and were going to have to amend their liquor licenses. That led to a number of musicians’ gigs being canceled and complaints that town officials had alerted the S.L.A. just before the start of the season.

“I make my living in a very short amount of time, and that’s no joke. It is a tough life to be a musician. I make my living playing in these venues — and now they’re in front of the S.L.A. The environment out here is really bad. Musicians are scrambling; bar owners are scrambling,” Ms. Atlas said.

“Is it possible to explain the timing, one week before the season?” asked Cynthia Daniels, a music producer and performer. “You see the terrible backlash. So how are we going to get this fixed?”

Business owners need to square matters with the S.L.A., Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said, suggesting they do so “as quickly as they can.”

Several speakers thanked the town for responding to community concerns after several hundred came to a board meeting following an unruly Fourth of July weekend last summer, seeking action against overcrowded rentals and clubs, public drunkenness, and so on.

“We all came together last Fourth of July,” said Anthony Sosinski, a fisherman known as Little Anthony. “We had issues here, major issues, and the town acted.” But, he said, “music brings us together.”

“Is there a consensus that we have a decibel problem with music more than we do with machinery” or other things that prompt noise complaints? Ms. Daniels asked.

Chris Pfund, a sound engineer and Montauk business owner, referred to the town’s clampdown. “That’s just this knee-jerk, bam — we’re going to stop this thing from happening. . . . It’s just a side effect from having too many people here,” he said. 

The 55-decibel property line threshold is “arbitrary,” he said, adding that noise readings should be pegged to a degree of sound above ambient noise, with a certain amount only considered  an annoyance. He urged the board to re-examine a more detailed noise ordinance that had been under discussion some years ago.

What’s happening, he said, is that people are taking the stance that “I can hear something, and I don’t want to hear it. Just because you can hear something and you don’t feel like hearing it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be legal,” he said.

Mr. Cantwell seemed to agree. There are “elements of what the town has that work. It’s not completely broken,” he said.  Music is performed at many places without incident, he said, but at some places “there are problems.”

Of 250 complaints about noise from commercial establishments last year, he said, only 50 resulted in findings that the level had exceeded what is allowed and were ticketed. “That’s a pretty good compliance rate, in my view.”

“I think that it is important that warnings are issued first,” Sarah Conway of Montauk, who also is a performer, said. “People are making a living as musicians, and to be walking on eggshells. . . .”

Bob Stern of Montauk suggested the use of sound abatement technology. “Not only does the town owe the musicians something, the businesses owe the musicians something — which is to be properly outfitted to do their job.” Businesses “should provide infrastructure which is conducive to them to rock out without disturbing neighbors,” he said.

But Kathy Havlik, a Montauk resident, said, “I think the town board was forced to step up and take some action.” Referring her comments to business owners, she said, “You guys have become bad neighbors. I don’t think that this board is trying to shut down live music. I really believe a balance will be struck.”

Alfredo Merat, another local musician, urged the town board to continue discussions with business owners and performers. “Live musicians were illegal at one point,” he said. “We changed it, we addressed it. It became apparent that people were making a living here at it.”

When last summer’s problems erupted, he said solutions were again sought. But the musicians are not the problem. “We’re not — we’re here to be good citizens.”

Of the decibel level that is a violation of the code, he said, “I’m louder when I snore.” Live outdoor music should be allowed to continue past the current 9 p.m. curfew until 11 p.m., he added.

 “The season is upon us,” Mr. Merat said.

“Live music, particularly in Montauk, is an important ingredient, for our visitors and for the Montauk resident, of the Montauk experience,” said Laraine Creegan of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. “We just want the town board to understand that that’s an important” issue for the chamber. “There’s a trickle-down effect.”

She acknowledged that liquor authority issues had to be solved by individual businesses. “But I think it might have been handled a little differently, because these folks out here lost a lot of money. It did have a great impact on people.”

 Arden Gardell of 668 the Gig Shack in Montauk said he had consulted an attorney who told him that “the fact that the East Hampton Town Board is pursuing the S.L.A. to look into this is almost unprecedented.”

“Your administration continues to try to find the most extreme ways to restrict the business community,” Mr. Gardell charged.

Other speakers brought up the recent Montauk Music Festival, and said the town, in deciding to issue permits for the festival, should take into consideration that performers are not paid and that, for that reason, a number of local performers refuse to participate. Ms. Atlas had complained that the town’s referrals to the liquor authority had not taken place until after the festival had been held.

Ms. Atlas had also summarized her earlier remarks by saying she had received her first-ever noise violation last summer when she wasn’t playing loud rock ’n’ roll, but a song from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.”

“So all kidding aside, we have an issue here. There used to be a civility to the process. There used to be a warning. We have to have an open communication between the businesses and the town. We need to start thinking about the families that live and breathe and are trying to make a living.”

A solution to the overcrowding at the Springs School may lie in the building in East Hampton that houses the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, which is to close at the end of the academic year. Liz Mendelman, the Springs School Board president, announced during a meeting of the board on Monday that the district is looking into leasing or purchasing the charter school building from Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, the nonprofit known as FREE, which manages it. FREE owns the building, while the Town of East Hampton owns the land.

“This wasn’t on the radar a month ago,” Ms. Mendelman said. “It wasn’t even an option, but now that C.D.C.H. is closing, that space is available. First, we need to find out if the school district can lease or buy. It is out of district and it’s two districts away. That has to be explored. We’re hoping we can get an answer soon so we can figure out whether we need to move forward or not.” Ms. Mendelman said by phone yesterday that the district had asked its attorneys, Ingerman & Smith of Hauppauge, to investigate. She and John J. Finello, the superintendent, and Barbara Dayton, a school board member, toured the building on June 6.

 Carole Campolo, a Springs resident who attended the meeting, urged the board to grab the building “in lieu of the expansion for the school,” which the district has been exploring for some time. “It’s 30,000 square feet of already-constructed space for a school. . . . It would alleviate the burden on the taxpayers, and since the crunch for space is now, you can alleviate your current space issues much more quickly than you could with any expansion that would not be completed until 2020 at the very best,” she said.

When Springs officials learned that the publicly funded charter school was to close, they realized Springs would have to absorb the 26 children who have attended classes there. The decision was to convert a computer lab into a classroom and to provide laptops on mobile carts moved from classroom to classroom. But C.D.C.H.’s demise also frees up about $725,000 in the 2016-17 budget. Ms. Mendelman said the money was an unexpected resource even though Springs would have to make some sort of investment in the C.D.C.H. building because it lacks a gymnasium and has movable walls and classroom spaces better suited for elementary rather than middle school students.

Also at the meeting, the school board approved, after a public hearing, to use $100,000 from the district’s reserves to complete certain repairs and upgrades. These include some new doors and windows, new burners for the boiler, and a new alarm system that will allow officials to pinpoint exactly where an incident is occurring within the building.

The board also heard a presentation from Chaleff and Rogers, the district’s architectural firm, about the overall condition of the building and grounds. According to the firm, several improvements are necessary, most importantly to the septic system and the roof. Also identified for improvement were the bus loop and traffic flow, and parking. A full report is to be sent to the New York State Education Department by the end of the month.

Since the death of their teenage daughter, Anna Mirabai Lytton, three years ago, Kate Rabinowitz and Rameshwar Das, a Springs couple, have been working to bring special arts and wellness programs to other youngsters in her name.

The Anna Mirabai Lytton Foundation for Arts and Wellness was started just a week after Anna was struck by a car in East Hampton Village while riding her bicycle to a summer job. Since then, a constant display of flowers and mementos has been maintained on the site, and yesterday, the third anniversary of Anna’s death, a tree and plaque donated by the East Hampton Village Police Benevolent Association was dedicated there.

• Related: Tree Dedicated to Anna Mirabai Lytton 

The foundation has sponsored several pilot programs at the Springs School, from which Anna, 14, had been set to graduate, including yoga classes, a nutrition and cooking class, a poetry bookmaking workshop, field trips for poetry writing and photography sessions, and mindfulness meditation training for teachers.

“It’s really an expansion of people’s love for her,” Ms. Rabinowitz said recently about the foundation. In the loss of her daughter — “of course, I want her back,” Ms. Rabinowitz said — “I want to love all children. I feel like Anna was going to be the kind of person in the world that helped people. She just brought people in; she had an incredible ability.”

So it is fitting, she said, to have a foundation established in her name to offer a variety of programs “that bring out the best in people.” Ms. Rabinowitz is herself a yoga teacher, and Mr. Das has long studied meditation.

“Anna was an avid reader and had begun to explore classic literature on her own,” according to a profile on the foundation website. “She was a prolific writer and poet, and loved to take photographs and listen to music. She loved to cook with her mother and brother, and she and her mom planned to make healthy snacks to sell at the local farmers market.  She had a great interest in health and well-being, loved flowers and gardening with her dad, and going to pick at Quail Hill Farm.”

The foundation’s broad definition of the arts includes all sorts of visual, literary, and performing arts. “Wellness is an integrated view of the many aspects of life that contribute to a healthy lifestyle, to the ormation of a balanced whole human being who functions well in society and has a deep grounding in the spirit,” the website explains.

At a community wellness and yoga night several weeks ago at the Springs School, children and families circulated to stations offering a taste of massage, Reiki, and aromatherapy, and were offered healthy smoothies and snacks. Four different yoga teachers offered mini-sessions of different types of yoga, and at an arts table Megan Chaskey, who had led the Springs eighth graders in a two-week poetry book-making session that culminated in a poetry reading, oversaw the creation of friendship bracelets and mandalas.

Other participants included the Wellness Foundation of East Hampton, the Springs General Store, the organizers of a Yogafest event, and Inda Eaton, a musician who played guitar during the evening. There were screenings of a film on nutrition made by Ms. Eaton and Annemarie McCoy, and of a video of Anna’s appearance, when she was in fourth grade, on a web program called “Smart Girls at the Party,” with Amy Poehler, demonstrating yoga poses she had learned with her mom.

“It was a fabulous community event,” said Ms. Rabinowitz, and was attended by some 200 people, including a number of Anna’s friends, now high school students.

“It was fun seeing whole families there. It just felt like there was a wonderful community spirit there,” said Mr. Das. Similar fairs could be planned for several times a year.

“It’s good to carry on her memory this way,” he said. “It came out of the thought that we wanted to do something for other kids,” he said. “These were the things that she really liked doing the most. It feels like it’s really a way of keeping her going . . . a way of carrying her along.”

It is hoped that the programs will provide models for similar offerings at other schools and community centers — especially important, Mr. Das said recently, because “arts and special programs budgets have been so clobbered” by budgetary restraints. 

With the first couple of years of programming under its belt, the foundation —- with a small core of three board members that includes Irene Tully, a former teacher of Anna’s at the Springs School, along with Anna’s parents — has documented its work in a video.

“Springs has been such a welcoming community,” Mr. Das said. Now, the group hopes “to figure out what works and see if we can replicate it in other situations. I would love to expand to other schools. I’m hoping that this will be a great prototype.”

The interest and willing participation of teachers is key, both he and Ms. Rabinowitz said, and at the Springs School, several became enthusiastic partners in the foundation’s work.

Several teaching units on nutrition have been pulled together, and the creation of teacher guides to the programs is on the foundation’s agenda.

Springs students in kindergarten through eighth grade all got at least six yoga classes sponsored by the foundation during the school year, and in 2015, five East Hampton High School students returned to Springs to design and paint a mural that tied the music and art rooms together. The East End Special Players, a drama group led by Jacqui Leader, participated in cooking sessions at the school, and 30 interested teachers attended an introduction to mindfulness and other social-emotional learning techniques for stress management and focus presented by Liz Slade, a teacher from Larchmont, N.Y., trained by the Inner Resilience Program of New York, who was brought to Springs by the foundation. Discussions are in the works to extend that program into classrooms.

The foundation also underwrote a retreat on Martha’s Vineyard, in a house owned by the Rabinowitz family, for nine teens who had experienced a loss, along with two counselors.

An Anna Mirabai Lytton Foundation financial scholarship is presented annually to a Springs School graduating eighth grader, selected by his or her teachers, who exemplifies a love of learning, helpfulness to others, and a sense of community.

Now that the nonprofit foundation has gotten on its feet, donations will be solicited. They can be sent to the Anna M. Lytton Foundation, P.O. Box 625, Amagansett 11930. They can also be made by naming the foundation as a recipient through the Amazon Smile program. Contributions of art supplies or of time and efforts to facilitate workshops, events, or benefits will also be appreciated, Anna’s parents said.

Accusations and recriminations went flying from the moment Monday’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Trustees began at Town Hall, with a half-dozen residents of Driftwood Shores, a development in Springs, accusing a couple who recently built a house on the last undeveloped lot there of prohibiting the use of the beach in front of it.

 The homeowners, Kenneth and Judith Reiss, insisted that they have no objection to anyone’s walking on the approximately 50 feet of beach in front of their house, but they said their deed extends to the mean high-water mark. Residents argued that access only to the beach below mean high water was unrealistic, at best, because of ongoing erosion. The Reisses told the trustees  they felt “under siege” and complained of nonstop hostility and harassment.

 The trustees, seemingly weary of multiple challenges to their jurisdiction over beaches on behalf of the public, and just a few hours after one of their number had testified at a trial about Truck Beach on Napeague, implored the neighbors to settle the matter amicably. Their attorney, Richard Whalen, however, said he would investigate the process — and the expense — of determining title to the disputed area.

Residents told the trustees that they, and in some cases multiple generations, had lived in the development for decades, using an access road to the beach and enjoying its unfettered use while other members of the public access it from the end of Springs-Fireplace Road. The Reisses “affirm the rest of us are only entitled to use the 20-foot-wide portion directly in front” of the access road rather than the beach in front of their house, which is wider due to the accretion of sand at a concrete groin, Peggy Backman of Driftwood Lane said.

Joseph Bradley said his family had owned property there since 1960 and had cared for and cleaned the beach throughout that span. The Reisses, he said, also object to property owners mooring their boats in the area of Gardiner’s Bay in front of their house. “If you buy land and build a house on waterfront property and you don’t want to see a boat,” Ed Cromer said, “I think you bought property in the wrong place.”

Ms. Reiss disagreed with her neighbors. “No one is being denied access to Gardiner’s Bay,” she said, and anyone can go to the beach. But “this entire community has made up their mind, they want to sit on our 50 feet.” She called four large chairs and kayaks that residents had put on the beach in front of their house a provocation, likening it to “sticking a flag in and saying ‘this is ours.’ ” When her husband said the residents do not congregate at any other portion of the beach, the response was “That’s not true!”

Ms. Reiss held a deed and property survey that she said proves they own the beach from the bulkhead at the upland to mean high water. Further, she said, her neighbors know this to be true, having previously appealed to the town attorney’s office. “It’s upsetting to know our neighbors knew this and totally ignored it. This is a private community: to come down Driftwood, you have to live there.”

“This is an old tale told again,” Mr. Whalen said. “Who owns the beach?” Most of the trustees’ original land grants date to the first half of the 18th century, he said, and extended to the bluff of the beach, “which I would interpret as not to the water, i.e., the trustees retained ownership of the beach.”

But matching those allotments to modern property ownership is not always easy. Sometimes, he said, it is discovered that a deed that extended to the bluff “suddenly ran to the water” when it was conveyed to a new owner. “In doing that, they’ve claimed ownership of beach where they didn’t have it,” in which case all subsequent claims would be invalid. “That is the issue as far as the trustees are concerned: We don’t know whether the beach is private because we don’t know whether the original land allotment went to mean high water.”

Referencing the Napeague beach litigation, Mr. Whalen suggested that if property owners in the development have had uninterrupted use of the beach for more than 10 years, they may have established prescriptive claim to it. But that “cannot be resolved in the absence of litigation.”

At the suggestion of Jim Grimes, one of the trustees, Mr. Whalen was asked to conduct a cursory investigation into ownership, as well as the trustees’ costs and potential liabilities.  But Mr. Grimes also instructed the neighbors to “try to settle it amicably. It may mean everybody gives a little bit.”

“For some reason, our dream has nothing to with their dream,” Mr. Bradley said of the Reisses. The adversarial relationship, he said, is “not what Springs is about, not what East Hampton is about. We all live in peace, have a good time, enjoy the beauty of our places.”

The case of a man accused by the Town of East Hampton of illegally converting a single-family house at 5 Hoover Court in Montauk into a multiple-dwelling residence is headed to a jury trial, following a contentious exchange on Monday between his attorney, the town’s, and East Hampton Town Justice Lisa R. Rana.

After inspecting the house last July, ordinance enforcement officers brought 21 charges against Eliot Ferguson, who purchased it with his wife, Jennifer Sample, for $1.15 million in 2012. According to documents on file at Justice Court, inspectors alleged that the couple had created bedrooms having no legal way out in case of fire, including a child’s room with bars on the windows, and had added an illegal second kitchen as well as an additional bathroom. A number of the charges are classified as misdemeanors under town code, including lacking building permits and certificates of occupancy; others are violations of state fire code laws regulating safety in residences.

The property, a little under a half-acre, fronts both Hoover Court and Tyler Road. From Tyler Road, a long driveway leads up a hill to the house, which has a two-car garage and a parking area that can hold several more cars. Just off the street on the Hoover Court side there is another parking area, which can accommodate another five or six vehicles.

The case was adjourned several times, during which time a warrant was issued for Mr. Ferguson’s arrest for failure to appear in court; it was voided when he showed up the next time. After that, Thomas Horn, who was then the couple’s lawyer, negotiated a conditional discharge with the town. The couple would pay a fine and the matter would be closed, as long as there were no other violations. However, as a condition for the settlement, the town demanded a new inspection take place.

Weeks, then months, went by, without the inspection happening. When it finally did, in late March, the owners were not present. Mr. Horn, however, was.

According to the town, the new inspection showed that almost nothing had changed. Almost all the original charges were filed again, plus a few new ones. Mr. Ferguson now faces a total of 44 charges.

Mr. Horn’s presence at the house during that inspection, Justice Rana told him last month, made him a potential witness in the case. Lawrence Kelly, who has worked with Mr. Horn on other cases here, replaced him.

On Monday, after entering a not-guilty plea on behalf of Mr. Ferguson, who was not in the courtroom, Mr. Kelly referred to the second inspection as “court-ordered.”

“Excuse me, I beg to differ,” Justice Rana interrupted. “If the people are requiring [an inspection] as part of a disposition, that is the people’s requirement.”

“The reason for the re-inspection is that the defendant’s previous attorney, Mr. Horn, said the defendant was now compliant,” said the lawyer for the town, NancyLynn Thiele. “The inspection was at the request of Mr. Horn in order to resolve his client’s case. It was not that the court ordered it, or the people demanded it, but that it was at the request of Mr. Horn, who actually scheduled the inspection.”

Justice Rana was not finished with Mr. Kelly. “For you to come in here and state that it is the court that requires it, with all due respect, is 100 percent incorrect. I’m not going to allow that to stand.”

Mr. Kelly then requested that an independent prosecutor to be appointed to replace Ms. Thiele, saying the town attorney’s office had a conflict of interest.

“That is a fact or issue of law which you can make a motion for,” Justice Rana responded. “As of right now, I don’t believe there are any motions in this case. At least make a motion that you believe that there is something remiss. In the meantime, I will set this down for a jury trial.”

Also arraigned during Monday’s zoning court session was Leslie M. Cooper, the owner of a house at 105 Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, along with eight co-defendants, all living in the house when it was raided in March after the town obtained a search warrant.

Hope De Lauter, an attorney for the town, told the court that Ms. Cooper had agreed to plead guilty to 10 of the 17 fire code and town ordinance violations with which she was charged, in return for a conditional discharge and a fine of $10,000. The exact terms will be negotiated before her next court appearance, on July 11.

The others arraigned were Carmen Rocio Yamba Tenezaca, 30, Jaimo Uzcha Namina, 31, Wilson Guillca-Satian, 30, Melida Yamba Tenezaca, 33, Jose Donaie, 40, Angel Uzcha, 32, Angel Maza-Namina, 32, and Rafael Felix Llauri, 23. Mancayo Arnulfo Rivera, 27, who was also charged, was not listed on Monday’s calendar.

Most of the tenants have since moved, several of them to Flanders. Ms. Cooper, who lives in Amityville, said after court let out that she had rented the house to a couple with a young child and had no idea they were bringing in additional tenants.